The Tech is MIT's student newspaper. It is published twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays, during the academic year. During IAP it is published weekly, on Wednesdays, and during the summer it is published once a month.

In the upper-left corner of each edition of The Tech is the phrase, "MIT’s Oldest and Largest Newspaper." On the website, the phrase is, "MIT's oldest and largest newspaper & the first newspaper published on the web."

Contents

History & Overview

The print edition was first published on November 16, 1881. The first issue began:

Students and Friends:

GREETING.

TO-DAY is issued the first number of our paper; and, although we tremble at the thought of the work before us, we begin it gladly. We believe that the same public spirit that founded The Tech will sustain it to the end.

Newspaper

Sections of The Tech include MIT News, Opinion, Arts, Campus Life, and Sports. There is also a "World and Nation" section which includes articles from the New York Times News Service.

The Tech's first issue in 1881.

Governance

The Tech is independent of MIT; faculty and administration have no oversight on the content. There is no faculty advisor. There is, however, an Advisory Board which consists largely of Tech alumni. In 2011, the Advisory Board consisted of 28 people, including former New York Times writer Karen Arenson '70, former Wall Street Journal writer Keith Winstein '03, and current Los Angeles Times writer Karen Kaplan '93.

The highest offices of The Tech are Chairman and Editor in Chief. Managing Board elections are held each year in December. New officers take office at the beginning of the new Volume in February.

Culture

Members of the Tech's staff often do work or hang out in the Tech's facilities, and they're often found at the dinners that are held twice a week — on Thursday and Sunday nights. Staff are free to use the Tech facilities. The News Room is where most of the production and editing happens; Tech staff can use any of the dozen computers — all macs, and some with 2 or 3 displays. During production nights, snacks are provided, and there is a vending machine (50 cents a drink) stocked with Arnold Palmer, Coke, Diet Coke, and Diet Barq's. There are also 4 computers in the "Prod Shop", two of them production computers with 3 displays. In the Prod Shop, staff can often be found either in a meeting, sitting on one of the futons and couches, or playing Super Smash Bros. on the Nintendo 64 (the most popular game at the office, though there is also an XBox 360 and a Wii, each with various games). The corner office, where many important meetings are held, also has a fantastic corner view of Massachusetts Avenue and the front of MIT. The entire Tech office is surrounded by a window.

Website

The Tech was the first newspaper to publish on the World Wide Web, in 1993. The website was first advertised in the August 26, 1993, edition of The Tech, though the web publishing project had begun well before that. The first advertisement read:

Read The Tech On-Line!

* The Tech is now available via World-Wide Web as well as on paper. Reading the latest issue or searching through our archives is now as easy as logging into Athena!

These archives contain the last 1 1/2 years of The Tech, and more issues are being added every week. If you have questions, suggestions, or bug reports about this servee, please write to [email protected]

The Tech also hosts the website "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare," which was first online compilation of Shakespeare. It was also started in 1993, by The Tech's then-Editor in Chief Jeremy Hylton '94. Hylton is still the contact for the archive and is now the head of Google's search quality team; he developed Google Blog Search and Google Real Time Search, among other things.

Finances

The Tech is a free newspaper. It is widely distributed on campus on the mornings of its publishing. It receives no financial support from the MIT administration or the Student Activity Fee. It is supported mainly by advertising. Much of the advertising is from companies looking to hire MIT graduates, and by MIT offices and student groups promoting their events.

When The Tech was first published in 1881, single copies of the newspaper were $0.15, and a year's subscription cost $2.00. Today, while individual issues are free on campus, a subscription can be purchased for mail delivery at $50 per year.

The Tech issue featuring the hack of the Harvard-Yale game in 1982.

Notable alumni

Journalists

Karen Arenson '70, former writer and editor for the New York Times (Features Editor)

Norman Sandler '75, former United Press International (UPI) White House Correspondent (Executive Editor)